When Oak at Fourteenth opened in Boulder to huzzahs generally reserved for British royals brandishing a new baby, the smart money in the metro restaurant biz had this question: How long before owners Steven Redzikowski and Bryan Dayton launched a Denver outpost?

About 2½ years, as it turns out, thanks in part to a fire at Oak that took a delaying ax to those plans. Acorn, the smart new restaurant in the RiNo neighborhood, finally opened in late summer.

And from its Boulder roots, something special is growing.

Acorn is housed in The Source, the new market/restaurant space developer Kyle Zeppelin has opened in a cavernous former foundry on Brighton Boulevard. With concrete floors, garage doors, graffitied brick walls and enough exposed ductwork and steel to keep a metal fabricator happy for months, the room doesn’t project coziness.

What it does deliver is superb food and drink.

The dishes come courtesy of Redzikowski, the talented executive chef who did stints at such heavy-hitters as Le Cirque and Jean-Georges in Manhattan, and Colorado’s own Little Nell and Frasca, before becoming co-owner of Oak at Fourteenth.

The menu is driven by shared plates, nearly all of them in the $13-$14 range. They are enough for two and can also serve as free-standing entrees. Only two large plates are on the menu, a grilled half-chicken for two ($25) and a monster 56-ounce bone-in pork shoulder ($85) meant to serve four to five people or one Diamond Jim Brady, should that legendary trencherman rise from the grave, stomach growling.

There are a few carryovers from Oak, notably the kale and Honeycrisp apple salad. This dish made our “Best of 2012” list, and is popular enough that if it was removed from the menu, diners would probably take up torches and pitchforks and bum-rush the place, like villagers in a Frankenstein flick.

The waitstaff is sharp, knowledgeable without beating you over the head about the food’s provenance. (Personally, I don’t need to know where the pig went to college before being turned into bacon.)

There is also a fetching bartender from Georgia, slender as a breadstick, who can converse about author Flannery O’Connor, her late, great fellow Peach Stater. If she offers you fried pickles — “They’re always a crowd-pleaser” — order them.

The menu emphasizes Redzikowski’s commitment to fresh, seasonal ingredients, with nods to tradition but also an emphasis on the now.

I loved the shrimp and grits, a dish that is nearly ubiquitous on contemporary American menus. This version was creamy, studded with butter-poached shrimp and graced by thin slices of Benton’s ham, a Tennessee product that is the South’s answer to prosciutto. It’s that good.

Another winning dish was the scallop crudo, fresh shellfish topped with dime-size radish slices in an overlapping arrangement that resembled fish scales. Clever. It all sat in a puddle of brown butter sauce that gave a sweet undercurrent to the brightness of the radishes.

I was less enamored of the olive-oil braised octopus and calamari. The seafood was awash in a goopy tomato sauce that all but drowned the flavors of the fish, a problem compounded by the saffron potato purée everything sat on. The dish didn’t know what it wanted to be, and for once I would have championed a deconstructed approach. The star ingredients were obviously fresh, but this was gilding the lily.

An attorney friend I was dining with rendered this verdict: “Octopus and calamari swim in the ocean. They don’t have to swim in the sauce, even if it’s great sauce. But it is great sauce.”

Oak-smoked duck breast was a knockout, medium-rare chunks served over black rice and bok choy, with wedges of ripe figs and a coconut curry rounding things out. Another winner was a lamb shawarma with shishito peppers, feta cheese and a harissa sauce. (Hooray, Tunisia.) I was also smitten with the grilled short ribs — crispy with tender interiors — that were paired with a cheddar polenta and ancho chiles.

The beverage program, devised by Dayton, is exemplary. Cocktails are divided into booze-free, “low booze” and higher-octane drinks. Try the Ginger’s Lost Island, made with Suerte Reposado tequila and spiked with cardamom, cinnamon and lemon-lime, served up in a small martini glass. The wine list is smart, although by-the-glass selections were slim. More will be added, a waiter assured us. The one dessert I had, creamy butterscotch pudding with roasted banana ice cream, was excellent.

Along with the floor tables there is a good-sized bar at the entrance, plus a chef’s line where you can sit and watch the kitchen staff do their thing with a coal-fired pizza oven and a wood-fueled grill. Look to your left when you’re on the line and you’ll see a big haunch of Iberico ham. The U-shaped chunk in the middle looks like a wolf took a big bite of pig, but it’s only where a staffer has gently carved slivers out for a plate of ham and housemade chicharrones.

The drive down Brighton Boulevard to Acorn isn’t nearly as far as you might think. Make the trip. Soon.

William Porter: 303-954-1877, wporter@denverpost.com or twitter.com/williamporterdp

ACORN

Contemporary American

3350 Brighton Blvd. 720-542-3721 denveracorn.com

***½Great/Exceptional

Atmosphere: Semi-industrial, with lots of brick and exposed ductwork

Service: Quick, personable, knowledgeable

Beverages: Beer, wine and cocktails with an emphasis on craft

Plates: Generally $12-$19, though there is a hulking pork shoulder for $85 meant to serve 4-5.

Restaurant critic William Porter is a feature writer at The Denver Post, where he covers food, culture and people. He joined the news outlet in 1997. Before that, he spent 14 years covering politics and popular culture at The Phoenix Gazette and Arizona Republic. He is a native of North Carolina.